ESPN just gave every doomsday Lions fan the receipts they needed
ESPN spent a week and a half polling NFL executives, coaches, and scouts to rank the best players at every position in the league. And when the dust settled, no team showed up on those lists more than the Detroit Lions.
Not the Chiefs. Not the Eagles. Not whoever won the Super Bowl. The Lions.
So if you’ve been sitting there wondering if this team is toast after the 2025 season, if the window slammed shut, if Brad Holmes needs to tear it down and start over, here’s your answer: hell no.
Let’s run through the list
According to the people who actually evaluate football talent for a living, here’s where Lions players landed.
Jared Goff is a top 10 quarterback. Jahmyr Gibbs is the second best running back in the entire NFL. Sam LaPorta is a top five tight end. Amon-Ra St. Brown ranked fifth among receivers, and Jameson Williams got an honorable mention.
Penei Sewell was named the number one offensive tackle in football. Not top three. Not top five. Number one.
Aidan Hutchinson came in as a top five edge rusher. Jack Campbell as a top five linebacker. Brian Branch and Kerby Joseph both landed in the top 10 at safety.
That’s not a rebuilding roster. That’s a loaded roster that had a bad year.
And almost none of them are going anywhere
Here’s the part that should actually make you feel good if you’ve been a Lions fan long enough to remember when our best players couldn’t wait to leave.
Goff isn’t going anywhere until 2028 or 2029. Gibbs is probably going to get an extension soon that makes him the highest paid running back in NFL history, locking him up through 2029 or 2030. LaPorta is in line for a big deal of his own. St. Brown is signed through 2027 or 2028, and the Lions will likely extend him again. Sewell is here until about 2028. Hutchinson and Campbell are both under contract through 2029. Joseph should be around that long too, and Branch is going to get an extension that locks him up for a long time.
This isn’t a team scrambling to keep the band together for one more shot. This is a young core that’s been built to last. The Lions are the sixth youngest team in the NFL. This isn’t a group of aging veterans watching the clock run out. This is a roster in its prime.
The injury excuse is real whether you want to believe it or not
Yeah, they had all these guys and still finished behind the Vikings and JJ McCarthy. I know. But Detroit finished 31st in the NFL in adjusted games lost to injury in 2025. That’s not a cope, that’s a fact. They were 25th in 2024.
They lost their entire secondary. Most of the guys on those ESPN lists weren’t even playing by the end of the season. The offensive line was held together with duct tape and prayers. The Lions were starting Kingsley Ekguakun at center. Trystan Colon played center for a stretch. Christian Mahogany got hurt. Taylor Decker played through injuries all year. Sewell and Tate Ratledge were basically the only two healthy starters up front.
And even with all of that carnage, every single one of those offensive skill players still put up what ESPN and NFL evaluators consider a top 10 worthy season.
Good teams have bad years and come back
The Eagles went 9-8 in 2021, made the Super Bowl in 2022, got embarrassed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the wild card round in 2023, then came back and won the Super Bowl in 2024. The Chiefs have been one of the best teams in the NFL for years, but they missed the playoffs last year. This is how it works.
Teams go up, they go down, they go back up again. The Lions going 9-8 and missing the playoffs in 2025 wasn’t the end of the story. It was a detour caused by an absolute plague of injuries and some bad breaks.
This roster is still stacked. The front office is still one of the best in football. The coaching staff is still elite. And the core is locked in for years.
Health is the number one thing that has to happen. If this team stays healthy, we’ve already seen what they can do. The talent is verified. The window is wide open.
So are we really going to sit here and pretend this thing is over, or are we going to trust what Brad Holmes has built and see what happens when this team isn’t playing half the season with backups? Let me know in the comments.
